Sunday, July 3, 2016

Halo Wars 2 new CG trailer.

Waaait, wait wait.

Wait just a goddamned minute, here.

There was something else. Something... oh gosh what was it..?

Oh right.

Yeah this is still happening.

I got through a further 7 Competitive matches yesterday, and the games finally ended up kind of... slipping into the skill groove where the groups I was playing against were actually pretty well-matched with my groups, and at the moment I'm sitting at 4 wins, 4 losses. Two more to go to earn my placement rank. I'll be fine with something in the mid-low forties, but I'm worried I might end up in like the low thirties, with teams I just won't have fun playing with.

But I hope not! I'm hoping I'll end up with the types of teams I had for those last six games - coulda' gone to us, coulda' gone to them, hard-fought, feel awesome when you win, don't feel so bad when you lose.

I'm hoping that's what Competitive will end up being - a way for players to actually get paired with others players of similar skill levels - and here's the thing... as I play against other good players, or against other great players, I end up upping my game. I'll be perfectly happy to just chill at like level 45 for a year, if it makes my quickplay matches a bit more even-tempered.

Like the bit in the clip yesterday when I zipped behind enemy lines to raise my Rein and zip back to our side - I've been practicing that! I've coined a phrase for it - I call it "tank dancing."

tank dancing

tank dance / tank danced

intransitive verb

1 : to fly to an ally's aid for a brief moment before returning to safety.2 : zipping between multiple allies during a firefight, spending as little time on the ground as possible.

I need to do more testing on it - her Guardian Angel (flight to a targeted ally / allied corpse) has a thirty yard range and a two-second cooldown. Her staff has a fifteen yard range - so I can begin healing (at least) halfway before I land next to my buddy, and for half of the trip back. I need to see if I can let the flight off the chain immediately after landing - potentially turning around mid-flight to target my return ally, and increase my survivability - but it's an incredibly powerful maneuver. Just a few seconds - 3 or 4 of them - can provide the same amount of healing as walking over a large health pack. You can fire yourself in there, give an ally just enough to survive and get themselves out or - worst-case scenario - distract the enemy squad for a few more crucial seconds while your team pours damage downrange.

So yeah. I need to practice it more, and it actually got me a POTG where I basically just leap in to heal a Rein at the last moment, leap back out and we take the final point of Dorado - but the POTG clip didn't include the 2 dudes I'd cleverly rezzed through the floor moments prior, so I've included the full sequence and not the official POTG.

So here's the clips from last night's gameplay! This one is a bit more subdued than vids past - longer clips, lesser accomplishments - just little things that I thought were cool.

Except for the Reaper Play of the Game. Today's Reaper Play of the Game is a shitty Play of the Game.

0:00 - 0:18 : A pretty legit POTG on Mercy, just as we're about to capture the payload on Hollywood. The team is preoccupied with, y'know, all those enemies they're clearing off the point, but Mercy spots a Torb setting up his turret behind us! She whips out her pistol and takes the turret out while it (thankfully) fires on one of her allies, and begins laying in to the Torb as life partner Pharah notices what's up, and sends in a rocket to finish the job. Mercy turns around, rezzes what was lost of her team, and that's a legit Play of the Game.

0:18 - 0:35 : Pharah returns to the first point on King's Row after a respawn, just in time to help clean up the last of the defenders. Mercy gets prioritized and taken out first, and the friendly Mei pops her ult to make McCree an easy target, and then it's down to the Rein with almost no health and a shield up.

Our brave Pharah plunges behind Rein's shield, turns to his back and point-blanks a rocket into him to finish clearing the point - nearly killing herself with the splash damage in the process.

Good times!

0:35 - 0:53: It's very bittersweet when you get a Play of the Game that you're not... particularly proud of. The very fact that I survived this Death Blossom when the enemy team immediately clocked me (the Rein did a perfect job blocking it with his shield) is, all on its own, impressive - but it woulda' been nice if (1) I hadn't missed that first shotgun blast on the Hanzo, (2) I had reloaded my shotties before dropping on the payload and (3) it had shown that yes, I did kill that Soldier I chased into the hallway.

Such is life.

And now it's back to Mercy for the rest of the show!

0:53 - 1:06 : This is a not-bad attempt at tank dancing, only damanged by my allies being a bit too far behind me to quickly zip back to - but it worked out perfectly. I zip in just as our Rein's health drops to critical levels, keeping him up at the critical moment. After a few steps I was able to zip back to our side, slingshotting well past our Zarya as the team and the payload caught up with Rein, and he falls back in to formation.

Beee-yootiful.

1:06 - 1:24 : This tank dancing fail was just a touch too late to save my allied Rein - but my sudden appearance and itchy trigger finger finish off the enemy Mei (how do I keep taking vengeance on Rein-murdering Meis?). A few strides gets me in range of an allied corpse as I return to the fold, and our Zarya shields me as I land for a touch more safety... before she instantly gets focus-fired and taken out by the reds.

1:24 - 1:38 : I show up just in time to give Rein a touch of healing, and he takes the opportunity to charge a grounded Pharah - providing a point to fly to that puts me in range of the already-wounded enemy Mercy. No one else is shooting at her, but that's okay. I'm enough.

1:38 - 1:45 : A squishy little Mercy should have been an easy snack for this Tracer. But Mercy can shoot back! Thanks for the assist, Mei!

1:45 - 2:16 : The POTG the game couldn't capture right, we have two friendlies on the final point of Dorado - but I'm not about to fly in there to try and save them. No, the hallway beneath the platform is a much more reasonable place to bring them back. The Soldier is quickly burned down, but Mei survives and pops her ult as our Reinhardt charges in, getting tossed around by the reds. He's almost-instantly brought down to critical, but a quick tank dance brings him off the edge and he pops his ult to shut down the enemy Zarya as we take the point.

Lovely.

2:16 - 2:27 : After taking the second point on Watchpoint Gibraltar, a Junkrat tries to assassinate Mercy - me! I guess he didn't expect me to shoot back - or pay attention to the Genji layin' the hurt on him as I ding a couple rounds on him.

Sorry, Junkrat. Thought I'd be easy pickins?

2:27 - 3:08 : The brawl for the initial payload grab (earlier in that same match) on Watchpoint Gibraltar is just about wrapped up when the red Zenyatta drops in and tries to focus-fire me. Just one more damned headshot and I woulda' got him! But he takes cover, regains some HP and doesn't come out until he's popped his ult.

So I wait. And the same Hanzo who saved my bacon earlier waits. And as soon as that ult drops, he's a dead Zen.

3:08 - 3:44 : This is the full clip from the Play of the Game at the start of this vid, showing the final push to clear the payload and Mercy's sexy flourish when the point is finally taken.

CHANCE...

...is actually named David.

This is where I write about video games. Beyond the simple pleasure of it, I hope to use this place as a bit of a mental gym to re-develop my writing style - something I seem to have misplaced around the turn of the century.

It will also serve as a personal blog, but for the most part if you enjoy discussion of gaming news, independent reviews and pointless musings, you have come to precisely the right place.

It's my custom to do at least one post per day - but whether it ends up being ten posts of breaking news and a review, or one post complaining about how I have a tummy ache is not set in stone.